Most higher education institutions have a policy regarding instructor evaluation and students play a dominant role in evaluation of classroom instruction. A standardized course/instructor evaluation form was used to understand the relationship of item responses on the student evaluation form, to the overall instructor score given by students taking general education program (GEP) courses. All student evaluation information from all GEP courses at a large public metropolitan university in the southeast United States for fall 2002 through spring 2009 semesters was used for data analysis. Results suggest that students reward, with higher evaluation scores, instructors who they perceive as organized and strive to clearly communicate content. Additionally, instructors of GEP courses need to be informed that students connect the level of respect and concern shown by the instructor and having an interest in student learning with the overall score they give the instructor. Course characteristics were related to the relative starting point for the scale chosen by students, but instructor qualities were consistent when considering class size, class mode and course area (English, mathematics, communication, etc...). Individual instructor characteristics were not considered in this study. (Contains 2 tables.)